My friend Kim recently had a Paint Splatter party at 4Cats Inglewood in Calgary. It was a lot of laid-back messy art fun, and she’s here to tell us all about it!
I love when kids get to make a mess and have fun, just not when it’s in my house. When I heard about 4Cats Inglewood’s Jackson Pollock-inspired Paint Splatter birthday parties, I had to see it. I mean, let my kids throw paint, have fun, create a piece of art, AND I don’t have to clean up? I’m in.
What You Get
Parties include ten children (including the birthday child), 1 hour of entertainment, and 45 minutes to celebrate (eat snacks and cake). Supplies, and (this is the best part) clean up are included.
The basic Paint Splatter paint party is $225. This includes a keepsake painting for each guest, as well as a group painting on a 36″ x 66″ unstretched canvas.
There are also several optional add-ons to make the party even better! Extra kids can be added for $15 each. Once you have more than 12 guests, you’ll need to include a second instructor for $50.
You can also upgrade the individual surfaces the kids create. A page is included, or you can choose a 9×12 canvas panel for $4/child or an 11×14 pre-stretched canvas for $7/child. Lastly, you can have the big canvas the kids create together stretched into a variety of sizes, costing between $25 and $70.
Our Party
We arrived at 4Cats about 10 minutes before the party start time. As the kids trickled in, they got to draw on chalkboards to get their creative juices flowing. Our party leader was engaging and entertaining – the kids were happy to learn from her.
Our party leader was quick to explain the rules. 4Cats has three of them: 1) No running 2) No screaming 3) NO BIG DEAL! “NO BIG DEAL” is exactly what it sounds like – paint in your hair? No big deal. Accidental paint on your friend’s picture? No big deal. Paint on your shoes? No big deal. I suspect this rule was as much as a reminder to us parents as it was for the kids.
The kids went into the splatter paint room and gathered around a nice, clean, blue canvas. They were given paint, and, before I knew it, were flinging paint at the canvas, being somewhat careful to avoid each other. They flung paint, they dropped paint, they threw water balloons of paint, they shot paint out of syringes. They had fun. They also did some serious paint flinging at their own canvases, creating their own works of art.
Once the instruction was complete and the kids were suitably covered in paint, they came back to the party room, washed up, and sat down for snacks and birthday cake. Fun was definitely had by all, and I’m sure there were a few naps on the way home!
I chose not to do goody bags, deciding to upgrade to a canvas panel for each child instead. This was a small oversight on my part, as you have to leave the artwork at 4Cats for curing, to be picked up later.
The space is a good size – there was another, larger, party at the same time and we barely noticed them. It’s also in a great location – several parents dropped their kids off and went to explore Inglewood while their kids had fun. The 4Cats staff were careful to warn me to tell all parents to dress their kids appropriately, as it was going to get messy! We heeded her advice and brought extra clothes, just in case other people didn’t!
Overall – the kids had a blast, and it was nice to see them create something!
